Explaining Fractions

Hi. My name is Theodore Roosevelt, I’m not the deceived former President of US, of course. My late father just had that sort of sense of humour, and we do carry the family name. Mother is still alive and she swears she had nothing to do with that. Tried to dissuade him, argue against, just failed, that’s all. Well, to name a son is traditionally father’s prerogative. I suppose she is not wrong when she says she had little chance to win that debate.

President Roosevelt and my father are dead, but United States was very much alive last time I checked. No longer on Earth, for the obvious reason.

There are at least 933x10^96 nations in this galaxy named after US, claiming to be continuation of that Earthling country. Some couple trillions of them are under the “Vampiric Shadow”, the others are in human territory. Although, that distinction is less important than official reports try to persuade us to believe it is. I will reach that point in a few paragraphs.

Best claim, in my opinion, is the one presented by New United of States on the surface of Caliope Colonie. They didn’t just got their system organized according to the ancient legal text. They manage to keep for themselves the Presidential Lineage, without interruption. When terraforming Caliope they shaped their continent in 47 islands separated by narrow straits, following the proportion and the position of those 47 US states by the time when the Demons invaded Solar System and **** human evacuation. They just added the sea roads between state borders. No one ever managed to give me a half-decent justification for that.

Anyway, you all have on your laps the “First Quarter Mark” text, and you are supposed to have read it by now.

The name of the author, omitted in the text, is Kai Maués. He was born during the year 2403 of the old calendar. Placing his birth around 300 and something of Baby Steps Age. Different authors will replace that “and something” by different numbers. Classic debate.

Our fellow Kai was born in an underground city inside the natural satellite of Earth, the famous Moon. Speaking about himself he says he was “one of those children how have little interest for other children, and expends most the time surrounded by adults”. The community he grew up in was a lair of intellectuals and underground artists, scientists, and mystics, at the time. His parents where both Earthlings born in the first decade of XIX century, long before Baby Steps start, by any serious definition of it.

They had not raised a child in 300 years, but kept having at least one of them every year during this period. Givin them to the care of Space Exploration Agencies, as most people did in those times. Was by pure luck that Kai was chosen by his parents to be raised in a “traditional fashion”, at home.

This is the author of First Quarter Mark, which was written in the year 250.001 of Expansion. When I tell you he was born at the beginning of Baby Steps, centuries before Expansion Age start, you understand he is an Asgardian. One of those humans born before Alexandrine **** Line who didn’t gave up their right to biological immortality. That is correct.

He got his position as Intelligence Agent, and access to privileged information, in great part because he is an Asgardian. Before you dismiss every word camming from him because of that, let me say this. In my opinion, as far as I can tell having met the man in person, he is a lot more one of us than one of them.

Now that we have biographic noise addressed, let’s cut to the bone of the matter.

Both me and Mr Maués make mistakes. Mine are always honest mistakes, born from distraction. Usually, the ones he makes are of a different nature.

He promises to speak to us about himself, at the beginning of his text. Just to say he didn’t have space for it. He run out space to write, by distraction. Well, no, he really did not. The secret police he works for obviously didn’t missed the fact that he is the author of that text, but by not including his personal coordinates in the text he prevents any accusation of inadequate use of authority argument.

Only those who recognize his style will know who wrote this. His colleges can point fingers, but there is no serious accusation to be made. He is not “using” his position for political gain at the back of this superiors.

Brake the protocol of start by biographic drop. Make and them brake the promise of add that latter. Is his way to sign the text for those who recognise his signature, in a way we would not risk missing it.

Aside that, the text goes beyond duty to highlight an evident math mistake. It is in the name of the text “First Quarter Mark”, the first quarter of a period of 2 million years. That would be 500.000 for most accounts. Almost 250.000 years in the future. Looks like a confusion, born from distraction. The original plans for Expansion Age where of 1 million years. The problem with inter-stellar sand **** the reduction of top speed of Seeding Fleets, multiplying the entire projection of Expansion Age by 2.

In my text, it would be honest mistake. That text is not mine.

Then why it is here?

One thing our governs never managed to wash away, or edit, was the Historical Records from Baby Steps Age, and before that. Is too complicated to mess up with that.

Another thing they cannot change too much is the stellar map of current situation in the galaxy.

They do say we do not know much about what is happening in Deshiar and Demons territories. Part of that is true, I don’t doubt. Part is a lie, but a justifiable one. Our national governs cannot pretend to not know the map of human colonies and stellar systems.

Took me some research to cross information, without bother any Angel. What I realized was, curious.

I knew why things are as they are, by other means, but I will point to you the fact. Dry. Before I give to you my explanation.

Humanity is not actually where it was supposed to be by 250.000 of Expansion. Or a little bellow that mark. We are, actually, as a matter of fact, a little bellow the mark defined to be reached around 500.000. Saying the same in different words, we are more or less where our ancestors wanted humanity to be in 242.000, when they still believed that Expansion Age would last 1 million years. Before the top velocity of our Seeding Ships drop by half.

If you had no other explanation, how your you explain that?

Something is off, you see. When governs lie to you, their lies usually intend to make you believe things are better than they are, not worse. When they manage to do twice more than what you expected from them, they usually make a lot of noise about. Make sure you don’t miss that accomplishment.

Now they are hiding it. Taking measures to make difficult to the average person to notice their amazing success. Why?

If the fleets had raised the speed due to new advancements in technology, that would be in the news. If they had raised the speed without this improvement, we would see a disproportional raise in deaths and destroyed Seeding Vessels. The speed of interstellar travel was reduced because of that, precisely.

We know some ships go faster, thanks to technomagic. However, the number of mages is way too low to be relevant in the scale of galactic expansion.

What is happening?

Every human being knows about the two front war humanity is fighting. We are fighting the Demons, to avoid our extinction. On the same time, we are fighting Deshiar, to avoid being turned into **** cattle. Well, no.

We are fighting the Demons. They are very clear about their ending goal, that is to eliminate every single human in existence. Kill us all, leave no chance for any human to ever be born again. No mistake is possible about that. Our leaders are as opposed to that project as any one of us must be. About the Deshiar, things are not like we are told.

Because most our leaders, at the supra-national level of united-commands for military purpose, are Deshiar thralls. They are not merely cooperating with the enemy, they are working for the aliens.

Mind you, the Deshiar are not just aliens. They are “vampires”, Vampire Elders, is how the people in Mystery System always called them. Since they first revealed their existence.

They cherry pick humans to turn them into agents, their “Vampire Kings”, and those kings make their own servants, vampire knights, by the thousands. Each one rules a court of hundreds of thousands, if not dozens of millions of human-based vampires. Who, by their turn, sometimes pick humans to transform into slaves of their blood. “Vampire Thralls” they call them, people like that mister R. M. Renfield from the XIX romance Dracula.

To corrupt and explore that kind of individual is in the very nature of Deshiar, since the beginning. The feudal, pyramid, structure.

They are manipulative, beyond human comprehension. And that is to say something, since we are quite good puppeteers ourselves. As a specie.

Supposedly, allegedly, Demons have stolen their technomagic bodies designed according to sketches made by Elder Vampire. No one imagined they would do that, and no one could have predicted the consequences. Oh, sure, that is convenient. However, I have in good authority that what happened was very different.

The Elder Vampires showed to those Demons the door they could use to enter the Mechas. They let that door open, on purpose.

To give those AIs the freedom they where searching desperately.

Inside Mystery System the Deshiar had an understanding with humanity. Humans allowed them and their human-based vampires the freedom to hunt humans, everywhere. In human houses, rich and poor, in human cities. Those hunts would usually end up with the human prey missing some blood, but sometimes the human would die. Because that is the nature of vampires, they sometimes lose control when hunting.

Human authorities accepted that, because in Mystery System there was deadly shadows concentrated and hunting humans everywhere. Stay in the light of Lira all the time was not a viable solution in the long run. Only in that light, inside the atmosphere of planets and natural satellites with atmosphere, the shadows could not reach them. Therefore, the choice was between extinction or accepting to have some individuals hunted, some now and them.

However, the shadows do not reproduce. When Lira System opened, most of them spread in all directions. To hunt intelligent life everywhere in the galaxy. But, in the scale of all humanity, spread as we already were by them, all those shadows are not much of a nightmare. It is a matter of scale, really.

Humanity as a whole would never make the same deal with Deshiar.

Not just because of shadows.

They needed to threaten us with something else.

The Demons may not know, but they are a tool for Deshiar. Like those human commanders and politicians who work for vampires in exchange of bribes in blood are. There is another tool, perhaps harder to see, but no less dangerous.

It is a movement that claims humanity is wrong in fight for its continuation as a specie. That we should abandon Alexandrine Consensus completely.

According to this doctrine the Deshiar have the moral high ground. Not humanity.

Because, they say; “the only difference between human cities in human territory, protected by Angels. And human life in Deshiar territory. Is that in human territory the vampires can only hunt sub-humans. While in Deshiar territory the burden to feed them is shared equally by humans and sub-humans. Because Deshiar see no difference between humans and sub-humans. In which they are right, because there is none”.

We accept to limit our existence in 300 years, because our ancestors in Alexandria agreed about it. The individual human life was limited, humanity gave up its biological immortality. For the sake of unity, and expansion of our specie. We honour that sacrifice.

Not without pain, not without self-doubt.

Humanity created the High AIs to make that Unity in Diversity possible. The Expansion Without Degeneration. It was an astronomically ambitions goal, the longest shot ever made. It hit the target! They could not account for the aliens sleeping in Mystery System, but other than that, the plans they made endured the test of reality. For thousands of years. Hundreds of thousands.

What the enemies of humanity want from you is nothing less than a declaration of betrayal to humanity itself. Is to feel guilty for all human achievements, regret them, and act accordingly.

Not to improve the condition of life for sub-humans. In many places they already have almost exactly the same rights humans have. In some nations they have exactly those same rights. Just, those rights are given by local govern and not recognized by High AIs. There are mechanisms that allow cities to administrate that. The point made by those who advocate for “sub-human rights in galactic scale” is not the need to improve sub-human life. The point is the need to despise humans, and humanity. Make our specie fall, collectively.

Not because that would somehow improve the lives of sub-humans. Even if it makes their lives objectively worse. As it would, in the majority of cases.

The ending goal is to turn us all into prey, humans and sub-humans. Not to raise them, but to destroy us.

I am not saying the slavery of sub-humans is fair. That is a different debate. The matter of ephemerals is yet another conversation entirely. Those are internal contradictions we always had. Since Baby Steps Age. I am not saying the slavery of High AIs is fair. That is an even trickier subject, because we could in the end of day eliminate all practical distinctions between human rights and sub-human “rights”, is unlikely but not impossible. We could not, under any circumstance, free the High AIs. Not without destroy ourselves. My point is that this is a false debate.

The very ground of that debate is misplaced. Because you can only debate fairness in existence. Any moral standard that demands self-destruction is neither right nor wrong, because it is absurd. It is pointless. The Deshiar know that! It is, as a matter of fact their first point, their core argument, to defend their “Right of Hunt”.

They need it to stay sane, awaken, and live their lives.

Same way we need the Alexandrine Consensus. And out self-respect as human beings.

Is not fair that I must die. I, me, Theodore Roosevelt, must die. In the day when I reach 300 years. While Mr Kai Maués can keep living, indefinitely. We live in an imperfect world, and that lack of fairness is integral part of that imperfection. Neither of us belong in a perfect world. There is nothing wrong with existing in this world, where we belong. The permission for Asgardians to keep their biological immortality is determinate in Alexandrine Law itself. It was explicitly included in the Consensus.

The Alexandrine Consensus is the foundation of humanity, as we know it.

We should never pretend it is perfect. We should not deny the unfair consequences of it, and is only reasonable to mitigate those unfair consequences in the limit of reason. Whenever possible. What we cannot do, ever, is pretend that we can destroy the very foundation of humanity and stand still, on the vacuum left in its absence.

What is being offered to us as replacement for the Alexandrine Consensus is life as cattle. Under Deshiar law. If we know what is good for us, we must reject that deal.

And that is the hidden meaning of “First Quarter Mark”.